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Topic: is god imaginary? (Read 4215 times)

I couldn't figure out how to start a topic, however this one seems to be quite popular so I wanted to post here. Did anyone see this?

"Question: "Is God imaginary?"

Answer: Godisimaginary.com is not the first to claim that God is imaginary. In an article entitled “Theology and Falsification” written many years ago, Anthony Flew, one of the twentieth century’s most outspoken atheists wrote,

Two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, “Some gardener must tend this plot.” The other disagrees, “There is no gardener.” So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. . . . Yet still the believer is not convinced. “But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, who comes secretly to look after the garden he loves.” At last the Skeptic despairs. “But what remains of the original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?”

Following Flew’s thoughts from decades ago, the web site godisimaginary.com provides what it believes are 50 “proofs” that God does not exist – that He is nothing more than an imaginary gardener, a superstition, a myth. The site claims, “Let's agree that there is no empirical evidence showing that God exists. If you think about it as a rational person, this lack of evidence is startling. There is not one bit of empirical evidence indicating that today's 'God,' nor any other contemporary god, nor any god of the past, exists.”

Actually, when a person thinks as a rational person and tosses away any preconceived bias and baggage that’s held, one must disagree with the site’s assertions and instead reach the conclusion that God does indeed exist.

Addressing each of the 50 points is unnecessary as it doesn’t matter if the site had 50,000 “proof” points against God; all one needs to do is use a logical, rational, and reasonable argument to show that God does indeed exist and every point becomes irrelevant. It is telling and interesting that godisimaginary.com focuses so much of its time on red herrings of issues with prayer and why God won’t do tricks upon request, and ignores the primary question of philosophy and religion: “Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?” In other words, like Flew, the site concentrates on issues with a gardener they believe to be imaginary and ignores the question of why a garden exists in the first place.

The only place on the site where a possible answer to this question is offered is “proof” point 47. Complexity, says the site, could only arise from either Nature itself or a Creator. “Proof” point 47 then states, “The advantage of the first option is that it is self-contained. The complexity arose spontaneously. No other explanation is required.”

This assertion and conclusion is flawed as they have proposed two explanations and then bundle a third option into the solution they like – spontaneous generation with an eternal universe. An eternal universe is, initially, a logical option but not spontaneous generation, which is a scientific term for something coming from nothing or self-creation, which is an analytically false statement – that is, a statement that shows itself to be false by definition. A fundamental law of science is ex nihilo nihil fit – out of nothing, nothing comes. And as Aristotle said, “Nothing is what rocks dream about.” The web site derides Christians for believing in magic, yet it embraces greater magic than anything found in the Bible – life just appearing out of nothing from non-life with no cause.

Next, their argument ignores the basic laws of causality – an effect must resemble its cause. How can an impersonal, meaningless, purposeless, amoral universe accidentally create beings who are full of personality and obsessed with meaning, purpose, and morality? It can’t. Further, intelligence doesn’t arise from non-intelligence, which is why even Richard Dawkins (noted atheist) and Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) admit that intelligence had to engineer DNA and life on earth – they just say it was a superior alien race who seeded the earth, which of course, begs the question of who engineered that superior alien race. Godisimaginary.com claims, “No intelligence is required to encode DNA,” but refuting this statement is the very co-discoverer of DNA himself – Francis Crick – who admits there is no way for DNA to have arisen apart from intelligence.

But what of evolution? Doesn’t evolution explain life and intelligence? Not at all. Evolution is a biological process that attempts to describe change in already existing life forms – it has no way to answer the question of existence. This one piece of evidence alone began to turn Anthony Flew away from atheism.

These facts being evident, it then becomes quite easy to offer a simple, reasonable, logical proof for God in the following way:

1. Something exists2. You don’t get something from nothing3. Therefore, something necessary and eternal exists4. The only two options are an eternal universe or an eternal Creator5. Science has disproved the concept of an eternal universe6. Therefore, an eternal Creator exists

The only premise that can be attacked is premise five, but the fact is every drop of evidence in the possession of science points to the fact that the universe is not eternal and had a beginning. And everything that has a beginning has a cause; therefore, the universe had a cause and is not eternal. Any fanciful assertions of collapsing universes, imaginary time, and the like are just that – fanciful – and require more faith to than to believe in God. The two choices are simple – matter before mind or mind before matter – and it is interesting that this web site claims it is their intelligence that causes them to choose the former over the latter.

“But who created God?” the site asks. Why not ask, “Where is the bachelor’s wife?” or “What does the color blue taste like?” It’s a category mistake – you don’t make the unmade. Further, why sit back comfortably and believe in an unmade universe and yet angrily bristle at the notion of an unmade Creator? Could it be because mindless matter cannot call human beings into moral account whereas a personal God can? Finally, is it more reasonable to embrace a cause that contains none of the characteristics of its effect (personality, love, meaning, purpose, etc.) or a cause that embodies them all (a personal God)? The site claims, “In other words, by applying logic, we can prove that God is imaginary,” but in reality, logic, reason, and evidence disprove their position and point in the absolute other direction.

The conclusion is that a personal Creator exists. Moreover, this Being who created everything mirrors the God described in the Bible quite well as evidenced by what one can infer just from the fact of creation alone:

• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space).• He must be powerful (incredibly).• He must be eternal (self-existent, because there is no infinite regress of causes).• He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it).• He must be timeless and changeless (He created time).• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical.• He must be personal (the impersonal can’t create personality).• He must be necessary as everything else depends on Him.• He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites.• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature.• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being.• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything.• He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver).• He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given).

The Judeo-Christian God perfectly fits this profile. At this point, all 50 “proofs” on the web site become irrelevant – God exists; therefore, all points offered on the site are incorrect in the final conclusion that they collectively try to reach. Wondering why God won’t cure all the cancer in the world because a group of Christians prayed for it, pointing out the divorce rate among Christians, scoffing because God doesn’t create money for churches out of thin air, wondering why Jesus never moved a physical mountain, asserting a false dichotomy that says a person must be a person of facts or of faith (many brilliant scientists believe in God), making unprovable claims that Jesus never did a concrete miracle, and erroneously stating that the Bible “advocates” senseless murder, slavery, and oppression of women - all end up being impotent in light of the conclusion that a creator God exists.

Answering such objections – if they are genuine and not extended in a way that refuses to believe even if reasoned responses are given – requires only the disciplined study of Scripture alongside the Spirit of God who inspired it. Arguments with those who possess a hardened skeptical spirit are to be avoided as 1 Timothy 6:20 says, “O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called 'knowledge.'” But even still, God is fully capable of using His powerful general revelation (the creation) to witness to those who appear completely lost due to a skeptical and hardened heart.

In stark contrast to the article he'd written many years earlier, in 2007, Anthony Flew wrote a much different kind of book entitled There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. In it, he recounts his atheism and relays how he now, because of evidence and reason, believes that a creator God exists. The one who initially posited an “imaginary gardener” now says, “I think the origins of the laws of nature and of life and the Universe point clearly to an intelligent Source. The burden of proof is on those who argue to the contrary.” This being the case, one thing is certain – the 50 frail attempts on godisimaginary.com to prove that God is imaginary fall far short of even causing a nick on the armor of evidence that opposes them."

Even if this person's basic claim is true, that something had to make DNA it doesn't prove Heaven, life after death, or anything true about the Bible. This guy literally used one basic claim that's a half-truth and then said he was right. Sweet.

The conclusion is that a personal Creator exists. Moreover, this Being who created everything mirrors the God Allah described in the Bible Koran quite well as evidenced by what one can infer just from the fact of creation alone:

• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space).• He must be powerful (incredibly).• He must be eternal (self-existent, because there is no infinite regress of causes).• He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it).• He must be timeless and changeless (He created time).• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical.• He must be personal (the impersonal can’t create personality).• He must be necessary as everything else depends on Him.• He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites.• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature.• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being.• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything.• He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver).• He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given).

The Judeo-Christian Muslim God perfectly fits this profile.

Strike outs mine.

This would be the exact, same response one would expect to get from a follower of Islam. Or, one could plug in Yahweh/Judaism or other monotheistic Creator-type entity throughout human history. Yours is not the only religion to make these claims.

My suggestion would be to first successfully defend your beliefs against every other religion's claims to represent the "One True God" before trying to pit Christianity against what the sciences have so far uncovered about life, the universe and everything.

And while I... speaking as an agnostic atheist... have at least the intellectual honesty to admit the impossibility of definitely ruling out the existence of some sort of divine creator, what can and has already been definitely proven to be historically and scientifically false are numerous claims made throughout your bible (Noah's "worldwide flood" being one example).

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The cosmos is also within us. We are made of star stuff.

The only thing bigger than the universe is humanity's collective sense of self-importance.

This would be the exact, same response one would expect to get from a follower of Islam. Or, one could plug in Yahweh/Judaism or other monotheistic Creator-type entity throughout human history.

To be accurate, Christianity, Islam and Judaism all share the same (imaginary) Abrahamic god.

I was attempting (and obviously failing) to point out to Sebastian that all three religions cannot claim to be the only correct reflection of their god's will since the Bible, Koran and Torah contains differing content. Thanks for helping me clarify.

« Last Edit: January 28, 2013, 02:18:29 PM by Disciple of Sagan »

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The cosmos is also within us. We are made of star stuff.

The only thing bigger than the universe is humanity's collective sense of self-importance.

1. Something exists2. You don’t get something from nothing3. Therefore, something necessary and eternal exists4. The only two options are an external universe or an eternal Creator5. Science has disproved the concept of an eternal universe6. Therefore, an eternal Creator exists

I of course am concerned that the OP won't return, so until I know otherwise, I'm not going to put much energy into this. But I thought I'd briefly talk about the above:

1. Yes2. You are assuming nothing is even possible. Physicists have good reason to believe there can't be nothing.3. Therefore this may not apply4. No. Eternal universes are not necessary, though they may exist.5. There are theories right now that there are multiple universes, perhaps even an infinite number, so I don't think this has been proven.6. And if something can't come from nothing, you've got a lot of explaining to do about this god guy.

It is telling and interesting that godisimaginary.com focuses so much of its time on red herrings of issues with prayer and why God won’t do tricks upon request, and ignores the primary question of philosophy and religion: “Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?”

Whenever I see this, I want to ask; why assume that there should've been nothing, rather than something? Every time I see this "why is there something" argument, I've noticed that they never explain why the default state of being is "nothing" (let alone what "nothing" means in this context).

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Further, intelligence doesn’t arise from non-intelligence, which is why even Richard Dawkins (noted atheist) and Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) admit that intelligence had to engineer DNA and life on earth –]they just say it was a superior alien race who seeded the earth, which of course, begs the question of who engineered that superior alien race.

Next, their argument ignores the basic laws of causality – an effect must resemble its cause.

? I've never heard of that law before. Citation, please. In what way does water resemble hydrogen and oxygen? How does a tree resemble a nut or a fruit? In what way does an explosion resemble an explosive device? In what way do broken bloody teeth resemble brass knuckles?

Further, intelligence doesn’t arise from non-intelligence, which is why even Richard Dawkins (noted atheist) and Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) admit that intelligence had to engineer DNA and life on earth – they just say it was a superior alien race who seeded the earth,

eh, no. You'll have to supply a reference for Crick. But the Dawkins reference is from the movie Expelled, wherein the producers did some creative editing[1] to make it appear Dawkins said something he did not intend to or actually say. You, my little friend, have been lied to.

...Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. ...leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet... I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity. Even if life on Earth was seeded by intelligent designers on another planet, and even if the alien life form was itself seeded four billion years earlier, the regress must ultimately be terminated.

There is a lot of fail contained in that one sentence. Define supernatural. Please explain how that is concluded from "he created time and space". Please explain how a god exists without time or space. Please explain how a god takes actions without time. etc...

No, no. Not at all. They are important because those points allegedly describe yhwh and the source is the bible. If those things are shown to not be real, then there are only a few conclusions. One possible conclusion is, there is no god as described in the bible. There may be other gods. But not yhwh.

eh, no. You'll have to supply a reference for Crick. But the Dawkins reference is from the movie Expelled, wherein the producers did some creative editing[1] to make it appear Dawkins said something he did not intend to or actually say. You, my little friend, have been lied to.

rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

Logic by itself isn't sufficient for this argument. As you say, someone could offer 50,000 logical arguments against the existence of God, and it wouldn't prove anything. The converse is also true, someone else could offer 50,000 logical arguments supporting the existence of God, and it wouldn't prove anything either.

If you want to show that God exists, you must be able to produce evidence to that end. This burden rests on you and others like you, because it's impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.

Logic by itself isn't sufficient for this argument. As you say, someone could offer 50,000 logical arguments against the existence of God, and it wouldn't prove anything. The converse is also true, someone else could offer 50,000 logical arguments supporting the existence of God, and it wouldn't prove anything either.

Yes. This is what drives me crazy about apologetics. (And to a lesser extent counterapologetics as well.) It's pointless and useless. You wouldn't apply such a procedure to any other area of inquiry.

If I say, "I have an Xbox 360 in my living room," and you express skepticism for whatever reason, the question will never be resolved by us sitting around talking about it. You can say that I'm not the gaming type, I can say that you simply don't know me all that well, I can describe various areas in Skyrim or Halo and say that I know that from playing them on my Xbox, you can say that I might have read all that stuff on a web site... on and on and on, and nothing would be accomplished. The way you determine whether I have an Xbox in my living room is, you go into my living room and look.

Christians have a tough time with this one, and it's not surprising. Apart from the fact that they can't give any evidence now, they also can't offer any excuses for not being able to provide evidence, considering the actions and promises offered by the deity in their holy book.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

I suppose this site has gone through these arguments many times. Frankly what bothers me most is the 'handy' "let's have an uncreated creator" bit. It is as though this is killer move, yet it certainly isn't that. It fails because -

1. Its an admission that there is nothing else to fall back on - like, say, evidence

2. Its trying to slide a 'god of the gaps' into some shrinking gaps in our knowledge

3. Whilst a 'necessary being' is a great bit of logical argument, if one is doing philosophy, it doesn't even make senses when we start to examine it. What does it even mean that something has always been around? If 'everything that exists has a cause', e can't make exceptions to suit the needs of the failing argument.

I agree with other here - let's see some real evidence first!

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No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such that its falshood would be more miraculous than the facts it endeavours to establish. (David Hume)

Well, if someone claims to have an Xbox 360 in their living room, and you go and look and there isn't one there, then I'd say that's pretty reasonable evidence that their claim was wrong. I suppose you could call that evidence of absence. They made a claim that could be demonstrated and failed to demonstrate it, therefore it's reasonable to think that the claim wasn't valid to begin with.

However, the Xbox could have been stolen, or borrowed, for example. Still, the more claims one makes that prove false, the heavier their burden of proof becomes.

Of course, if we went into the living room and the Xbox wasn't there we might be able to spot other things - the power supply, joysticks, games even a manual. These would all lead us to suppose that, even though the actual machine wasn't there, it had been and might be coming back. Finding these things therefore strengthens the case for the existence of the Xbox.

The news of god isn't, of course, as healthy. Not been seen since the OT and no sigh of any activity either. he needs to come up with something soon or we will be able to declare him as non-existent.

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No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such that its falshood would be more miraculous than the facts it endeavours to establish. (David Hume)

The god of the Bible can safely be dismissed as a serious candidate for Magic Uncreated Creating Thingamajig. The assertion "He must be intelligent" in the OP is contradicted right in the book of Genesis, where Biblegod runs afoul of a Talking Snake™.